OUR BLOG

Energy Insights, by Fairbanks Energy, examines a wide variety of topics within the energy sector. We discuss industry trends, compile the latest news, feature recent projects, highlight company updates, and give our own engineers a platform to answer questions within the field of energy conservation.

In the U.S., higher education facilities spend an average of $1.10 per square foot on electricity costs, 31% ($0.34) of which are lighting costs. In most colleges and universities, laboratory and residential buildings are the biggest energy users. At Harvard University, for example, while laboratory buildings make up only 22% of the buildings on campus, they use 49% of the total energy; residential buildings and dorms account for 18% of the university’s energy consumption.

Manufacturing facilities use a tremendous amount of energy – for heating and cooling, lighting, and operating equipment. In fact, the industrial sector of the US economy, which includes manufacturing, used about 1/3 of all the energy consumed in the US in 2017. That amounts to $200 billion each year that manufacturers spend to heat, cool, and light their facilities and operate their equipment.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, healthcare is one of the top five energy-consuming building categories and accounts for nine percent of energy use in commercial buildings. With utility bills making up an average of 1.4 percent of a hospital’s operating revenue, hospitals in the U.S spend about $8.3 billion total on energy costs each year. The impact of these energy costs on an individual hospital is huge. For example, a 200,000 square foot, 50-bed facility spends about $13,600 per bed on energy costs, equaling about $680,000 each year.

Fairbanks Energy Services hosted our Second Annual Charity Golf Invitational this August at Granite Links Golf Club in Quincy, MA. The event brought together customers, vendors and partners of Fairbanks Energy for a fun day outside of the office to raise money for the non-profit charity, AmpSurf. Check out some pictures from the event below.

Energy efficiency retrofits of existing building systems for large commercial and industrial facilities are one of the best investments companies can make to reduce their operational expenses. In higher cost of energy areas of the country, the savings of the projects combined with incentives from the local utility and tax benefits typically result in projects with an annual rate of return greater than 33%.

Design and installation of LED Lighting and Building Management System by leading energy conservation provider has yielded an annual saving of more than $200,000 while securing utility incentives and rebates of more than $320,000